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Child abuse probe may help healing: Greens

A wide-ranging royal commission into Australian institutional responses to child sex abuse may help heal shattered lives, the Australian Greens say.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard will ask Governor-General Quentin Bryce to set up the inquiry into institutional responses to instances and allegations of child abuse in Australia, with a focus on sex abuse.

Australian Greens leader Christine Milne said it would be welcome, if difficult, news for thousands of Australians.

"I hope this can bring some peace and justice to shattered lives, lift the shadow off all those good people in the church striving to do good for others, and make sure nothing like this ever happens again," she said in a statement on Monday.

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Independent MP Tony Windsor said the royal commission would not be a "witch hunt".

"It's about giving the victims of child sexual abuse access to justice and in so doing give them hope that they can have a future in which they can move on from the past," he said in a statement.

The Brotherhood of St Laurence says a royal commission is long overdue and it hopes it will bring crimes committed against children out into the open.

Executive director Tony Nicholson said it was obscene that institutions had covered up their crimes for decades.

"We welcome this announcement but it is well overdue," Mr Nicholson told AAP after Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a royal commission into institutional responses to allegations of child abuse in Australia.

"It's obscene that institutions have for so long chosen to cover up crimes against the most vulnerable - our children - and have failed to report it to the police."

It was important the terms of reference, still to be announced by Ms Gillard, were comprehensive.

"Once and for all we can get these crimes into the open," Mr Nicholson said.

Nicky Davis from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said her first reaction to the announcement was to hug her son and sob with joy.

"Our suffering is being recognised, our voices are being heard and this is a wonderful thing," she told ABC television.

Victims wouldn't be able to heal while the truth was covered up, Ms Davis said.

She urged the prime minister to ensure that victims' voices were heard when the commission's terms of reference were put together.

"We are the experts in how they managed to get away with this for so long," she said.

Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu said his government would work with the federal government to establish the commission.

The Victorian government has been conducting its own parliamentary inquiry into sexual abuse of children by clergy, which Mr Baillieu said had provided the opportunity for a national focus on the issue.

"It is clear that there have been a substantial number of established complaints of sexual abuse of children by those who have taken advantage of positions of authority," he said in a statement.

"This abuse is abhorrent and it has had traumatic consequences for victims and their families.

"It is important that we do whatever we can to prevent it from happening and bring those who are perpetrators of child abuse to justice."

Stephen Woods, who was abused by Catholic clergymen from the age of 11, hoped the commission would help on his road to recovery.

"When you're believed, it makes you feel a little bit more powerful in one way, that, yes, I can overcome this, I can deal with this - this wasn't my fault," he told ABC television.

He described the abuse he suffered at the hands of the clergymen.

"He would molest you in the front of the class.

"While, say, you were reading a book ... he'd have his hands up your shorts.

"Or he'd take me into his office where he used to make me strip and he would masturbate behind his desk."

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said as individuals they shared the feelings of horror and outrage all decent people felt reading the reports of sexual abuse and allegations of cover ups.

"While there were significant problems concerning some dioceses and some religious orders, talk of a systemic problem of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is ill-founded and inconsistent with the facts," they said.

They believe it would help determine the scope of the royal commission if police and child protection authorities released the information they have about the number of cases they are dealing with now and the situations in which they have arisen - families, government organisations and non-government organisations, including churches.

Broken Rites, a long-time campaigner for justice for children abused by pedophile priests, says it wants to see outcomes for victims.

President Chris MacIsaac says it has been a long, hard battle and he now wants to see the Catholic church speak frankly about what it knows.

"We want an outcome that will benefit victims, to see recommendations made that actually help victims," Ms MacIsaac told AAP.

"They want the actual knowledge that the church accepts that these crimes took place so they can shake off their guilt and begin to rebuild their lives.

"It's certainly time that the church shed some of what it knows about what's happened over the last 20 to 30 years."

The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney said he was praying for a good outcome from the royal commission.

"The Diocese of Sydney expresses its unqualified abhorrence of child abuse, wherever it occurs," Archbishop Peter Jensen said in a statement on Monday night.

"While the terms of reference have yet to be decided, we will work and pray for an outcome which will result in a safer society for the most vulnerable."